OERu/2011.11 OERu Proposal for action for 2012 prototype

Proposal for action tabled by Professor Jim Taylor for establishing teams to commence work on a viable project plan for the OERu prototype.

Issue:

Establish parameters and develop a project plan for the implementation of the 2012 OERu Prototype.

Proposer: Jim Taylor

Rationale:

To maintain momentum for the OERu innovation partnership and to enhance the profile of the OERu, run a prototype of the project entailing the offering of a small number of courses/subjects (e.g. 3) via Moodle on the WikiEducator platform to provide students with an opportunity to gain credit prior to the end of the 2012 calendar year.

The 2012 Prototype will act as a proof of concept trial and will enable the refinement of operational processes associated with the OERu Logic Model prior to an official launch of OERu.

Proposals for Action:

Establish a series of teams to work on the following tasks, thereby enabling the development of a viable project plan:

Work collaboratively on the selection of the initial courses to be offered and in small groups of partners undertake possible course enhancement via peer review to guarantee cross-credit of initial offerings across as many OERTen partners as possible via existing institutional processes.

Work collaboratively to develop new policies and associated institutional procedures where necessary.

Establish “Academic Volunteers International” including the development of: (i) a recruitment process possibly based on an “honor” system, (ii) an associated training program to enable the provision of culturally sensitive e-moderating services to students, and (iii) agreed logistical parameters for (volunteer) staff to student ratios and the number of volunteers per student group, and associated standards for student support interactions.

Manage the scale of the prototype (e.g. 100 students per course) by offering institutional scholarships so that the first cohort of students has access to OERu at no financial cost to the individual.

Devise administrative procedures and an associated web interface for open assessment processes and devise an associated “cost-recovery service fee” based on activity based costing, thereby providing empirical data for the open business model.

Undertake a thorough evaluation of the 2012 Prototype, possibly using the CIPP Model, to enable the refinement of operational processes prior to an official launch of OERu on a larger scale.

Devise a project plan for the 2012 Prototype.

Begin work on a master project plan for the official launch of OERu during 2013.

The participants divided into three working groups:

Group 1: Considered the selection of initial courses and incorporated policy and institutional procedure issues (Point 1 and 2 above.)